Voice of Experience
by Edward Carson
Summary: Carson offers Barrow some helpful advice in the wake of events in SEASON 6, EPISODE 8. They are worlds apart, but even these two lives know some common ground.


**Voice of Experience**

" _My lord, I wonder if I might have a word."_

" _What is it?"_

" _With your permission, I'd like to tell Mr. Barrow that he can stay, for the time being at any rate. It would take a load off his mind."_

" _That's a relief. I was going to suggest the same thing."_

" _Were you, my lord?"_

" _Yes. You see, I feel quite as guilty as you do, Carson."_

" _I tell you what I blame myself for. I didn't credit him with any feelings. I didn't think he had a heart. And I was wrong."_

" _No man is an island, Carson. Not even Thomas Barrow_."*

Carson closed the car door for His Lordship and then went back into the house, heading for the servants' stairs to have his chat with Mr. Barrow. He did not have to think about what he was going to say. He'd spent most of the previous night working it out. Elsie had asked him, once, what was on his mind. But when he put her off she did not press him again, although his tossing and turning must have kept her awake, too. It was one of the several dozen things he liked immensely about her that she did not push him to confide in her. She let him know that she was aware of his disquietude and was willing to listen, but left it to him to choose his moment. She probably thought he was still agitated over the family's visit to Mrs. Patmore's _house of ill repute_ , and he was. But he had been overridden on that. Barrow, on the other hand, was a problem squarely within his bailiwick and one for whose solution he was responsible.

He did not relish the conversation he was about to have, but neither did he shrink from it. Negotiating issues with the staff was part of his job and he thought himself very good at it, most of the time. If he had fallen short with Barrow, then now was the time to mend that error and he was fortunate to have the opportunity to do so.

He could not help pausing, as he walked down the corridor of the men's quarters, at the door to the room he had occupied for some thirty years. It stabbed at his heart a little, though not as much as it had the last time he had been up here. He knew he didn't miss the room itself so much as the habit of it, his longing a reflection of his innate resistance to change. Yet he was glad to note a waning of this hold on his feelings because, of all the changes he had known in his life, his marriage was by far the best of them, and the incidental emotional adjustments associated with it a very small price to pay for the joys of having Elsie as his wife. These thoughts fostered an affable spirit in him as he knocked on Mr. Barrow's door and then went in.

Barrow was awake, sitting up in bed and reading the sporting pages. He looked up startled at the butler's appearance and promptly put aside his reading material and straightened up as best he could. It was a reflexive impulse, born of decades of service. Had he not been in his pyjamas, he would have leaped to his feet.

Mr. Carson waved away Barrow's efforts to observe the niceties and drew the lone chair in the room - a sturdy if not very comfortable hard-backed one - up to the bed and sat down. He caught a glimpse of ... something ... in Barrow's eyes as he did so. Was it perhaps trepidation at the prospect of what looked like more than a perfunctory inquiry about his health?

"Mr. Carson." Barrow spoke almost breathlessly, his capacity to conceal his inner turbulence somewhat impaired by his recent troubles.

"How are you, Mr. Barrow?" Even as he asked this, Mr. Carson ran his eyes over the younger man, making his own assessment. Barrow was paler than usual, which was hardly surprising. His bandaged wrists, protruding from the ends of his pyjama shirt sleeves, were hard to ignore. Mr. Carson hastily averted his eyes. Overall the man looked vulnerable, not a state he had ever ascribed to Barrow. Perhaps his own guilt was affecting the way he looked at the man.

"I'm feeling better, thank you," Barrow said in a subdued voice, and he looked as uncomfortable as Carson felt. He shifted uneasily a bit and then blurted out, "I'm very sorry, Mr. Carson. I've brought shame on Downton and I know how bad this must seem to..." His hurried and almost stammering apology, the shaken voice a far cry from Thomas Barrow's usually smooth and unflappable tones, was arrested by a gesture from the butler.

"Please, Mr. Barrow. There is no need for that. My concerns are the least of it in this moment." In truth, Carson _was_ much aggrieved at the newsworthy nature of the incident and its possible impact on Downton's reputation, especially coupled with the family's visit to Mrs. Patmore's infamous bed-and-breakfast. But this was not the time to dwell on it. Barrow fell silent and slumped back onto his pillows a little, and Mr. Carson took the moment to gather his thoughts.

"There are a few things I must say to you, Mr. Barrow." He spoke in as sympathetic a tone as he could muster, eager to set the younger man's mind at rest. "The first is that you need not worry about your status at Downton for the time being. I have spoken with His Lordship and he agrees with me on this. You are to recover your health and ... regain your equilibrium,...and there will be time enough then to review other matters."

Carson had put it to His Lordship that this concession might relieve Barrow of some worry, but he was not prepared to see that relief so tangibly manifested in Barrow's countenance. He did indeed look as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. A great sigh escaped him and he closed his eyes briefly.

Opening them again, he gave the butler an almost warm look of appreciation. "Thank you, Mr. Carson."

This palpable sense of gratitude only unsettled Mr. Carson and made the additional remarks he had prepared all the more imperative.

"I want to apologize to you, Mr. Barrow." This was difficult to say, but Carson said it with all sincerity as the conclusion to the hard thinking he had been prompted to by the news of the underbutler's extreme actions. "I have been remiss in my duties toward you as part of the staff and that I have been so is entirely my fault."

Barrow could only stare in astonishment, his mouth open slightly in an uncouth way.

Mr. Carson was not put off. "From your earliest days of service at Downton you have stood apart, largely, I think, of your own volition." Though prepared to take responsibility for his own behaviour, Carson was not about to overlook _all_ of Barrow's shortcomings. "You exercised an independence of mind that kept you outside the social circle of the staff, with one or two exceptions..." Carson was thinking primarily of Miss O'Brien, Her Ladyship's former lady's maid and someone he had always thought quite as odious as Barrow himself. "I tolerated this situation. You were a quick learner and did your work with efficiency and usually to my standards, so I let you go your own way in those matters that did not immediately infringe on your responsibilities."

He took a deep breath and looked Barrow squarely in the eye. "I was wrong to permit you to exist on the peripheries and to leave you to your own devices. I ought to have exerted more oversight, worked to integrate you more cohesively into the fabric of our society at Downton, rather than permit you to isolate yourself as you have done. It isn't necessary that we all _like_ each other so much as that we can all work together in a congenial atmosphere that gives at least a measure of satisfaction and self-worth to us all. I failed you there, Mr. Barrow. I ought also to have acknowledged your ambition and fostered it, training you up properly to take on additional responsibilities if not here at Downton then elsewhere. I could have done more to assist you in finding an appropriate place to apply your skills and in making sure you were up the challenge."

The butler spoke all of this in an even tone, meeting unflinchingly Barrow's somewhat stunned expression. Carson said nothing he did not think was true and if there was an edge of irritation to his voice, it was irritation with himself. His deliberations regarding Barrow these last few days had exposed a personal prejudice toward the man that was not in keeping with the way Carson usually viewed his subordinates, and this bothered him. He was disappointed with himself.

"You take too much on yourself, Mr. Carson. I am accountable for my own behaviour. And its consequences." This was a bitter admission for Barrow, who looked away as he spoke, as if he found the truth of his own words distasteful.

"That's as may be," Mr. Carson said, "but it _is_ my responsibility to look out for you, at least in terms of your working relationships. I might have imposed on you, and the staff at large, a little more. And I might have led better by example. I failed to do that. And I am sorry for it."

Barrow met the butler's solemn gaze hesitantly and nodded in acknowledgment. That was really all that either one of them could manage.

Preoccupied with his own thoughts, Barrow did not observe the momentary struggle that played out in Mr. Carson's features. "There is another matter I should like to raise, Mr. Barrow," he began, in a deliberate manner. "I have noticed over the past few months that you have been spending a great deal of time with the children of the house, Master George in particular."

A dark scowl, far more characteristic of the man Mr. Carson had long been acquainted with, swept Barrow's countenance. All of the good will established in the last few minutes evaporated in an instant. "Oh, here it comes," Barrow snapped, not even bothering to try to temper his tone. "Stay away from the children. We don't want _someone like you_ corrupting the innocent. _Especially_ Master George." His face was ugly with the bitterness of rejection and the despair that had gripped him so completely only days ago and sent him into the bathroom with a razor flowed over him again.

For the briefest moment, Mr. Carson felt a pang of disgust. His mind had not gone in that direction. Such a thought would never have occurred to him and the idea of it repulsed him. But he pushed this abruptly from his consciousness and patiently waited out the tirade. He did not take offense at Barrow's tone. There was a time for calling a subordinate to account for an attitude, but this was not one of them. Only when Barrow looked away in anger did the butler speak again, his calm voice a contrast to the other's snarl.

"If I am to turn the page in our association and start afresh, Mr. Barrow, I would hope that you might oblige me with the same courtesy. That is not at all where I was heading."

Barrow had the aspect of a wounded animal, hurting and not quite prepared to accept the hand of assistance extended in kindness. He turned abruptly to Mr. Carson, his mouth drawn up in the pout that fronted his resistance to a hostile world. But perhaps seeing the sincerity in the older man's eyes, he relented a little, and sank back into his pillows. "I'm sorry, Mr. Carson," he said quietly, and a little sullenly.

Again Carson hesitated. He was now about to venture into more personal territory, both his own and Barrow's. A natural reticence, coupled with a reluctance to confide private matters to this particular audience, slowed him up. And yet this was perhaps the most useful advice he might offer Barrow and he was, therefore, determined to impart it.

"I think - and I may be wrong here - that your _troubles_ may have more to do with...a long-standing unhappiness in your personal life...rather than the specific pressure surrounding your employment here at Downton, although that may have been the precipitating element in your...crisis." He gave Barrow a moment to correct him and, when he did not, Carson continued.

"I think I can understand...to some small degree...the frustration you feel about the limits imposed by your nature in a society that has made...," he was going to say _people like you_ , but caught himself, "...your natural inclinations both socially unacceptable and unlawful. It is a human impulse to seek out a...a companion...," Carson chose the word carefully, shying away from _spouse_ or _lover,_ "...even for you, and I am sorry for your situation, even if I cannot quite sympathize with the specific circumstances." He did not approve of Barrow's nature and could not and would not countenance the behaviour associated with it, but this was not the point he was trying to make.

"It is also natural, I think, that, expecting and looking for such a relationship as an objective in life, to be obstructed in it must be...trying indeed. I would only say this, Mr. Barrow." And here, Mr. Carson became more earnest as he neared the subject close to his heart. "It is a folly to seek one kind of love to the exclusion of all others. The blessing of a ...a conjugal..., of a marriage between a man and... Oh, you know what I mean!" He got a little exasperated at his inability to find the proper words. "... This is not bestowed on us all. We do ourselves a disservice, therefore, if we spend our lives bemoaning what we have not, instead of making all we can of what we have."

"What do you mean?" Barrow asked softly, more intrigued by this odd turn of conversation than offended by Mr. Carson's awkward attempts to address Barrow's difference.

"There are many forms of love," Carson said forcefully, "and our hearts ideally constructed so as to make the most of all of them. It is in our individual best interests to seek it everywhere. Beyond that of...well,...you know,... there is the love of good friends, something I think you have not much enjoyed." He added this rather delicately, and then, as Barrow winced, moved on hurriedly to his fundamental concern.

"One of the most fulfilling kinds of love is that shared with a child. There is a very special bond between parent and child, naturally, but it is also possible to love a child who is not your own with all your heart, and to be loved in full measure in return. It is a purer sort of love, in a way, uncluttered by the complications of adult concerns. And it is a redemptive love, Mr. Barrow, that can heal a wounded heart like nothing else." He paused, debating how much of himself to expose here, and then added, "Until the past few months, I have led a life alone, but I have not been lonely. I know from experience of what I speak, Mr. Barrow."

"Everyone knows how much you've always cared for Lady Mary," Barrow blurted, and then, startled at his own bluntness, hastily said, "Please excuse the impertinence, Mr. Carson."

In most circumstances Carson would have berated the one who took such a liberty, but he shrugged off Barrow's indiscretion in the context of the conversation. "Since I opened the door to it, I can hardly issue a reprimand," he said drily. "And I have no wish to deny the truth." He paused again. "All I'm saying, Mr. Barrow, is that there are many avenues to emotional fulfilment in life. Take advantage of every opportunity for love. They will, each of them, enrich your life. They have done mine."

So far as Mr. Carson was concerned, that was quite enough of _that_ , and he heaved himself to his feet. "Well!" he declared. "Time to get on with my duties." Doing up accounts or even polishing silver were tasks that looked appealing after this. He headed for the door.

"Thank you, Mr. Carson." Barrow's words caught the butler up short. He glanced over his shoulder to find Barrow gazing at him with an expression of gratitude. "I will take your words to heart."

Carson turned away, stepped into the corridor, and almost collided with Lady Mary, who stood there hand-in-hand with Master George.

"My lady," Carson said, recovering quickly from his surprise.

Lady Mary said nothing, only staring up at him with eyes wet with emotion, a small smile on her lips. Neither of them moved for a long moment and Carson wondered how much she had heard of the conversation within.

"I want to see Mr. Barrow, Mummy," Master George piped up.

Lady Mary glanced down at him. "And so you shall." But as they slipped by Carson, she looked up to meet his eye once more and her smile broadened. His heart swelled with affection for her as it always did whenever she fell under his gaze.

Carson listened long enough to hear Master George greet Barrow with childish delight and the underbutler reply enthusiastically in his turn. Had he ever heard such feeling in Barrow's voice? _Well_ , he said to himself, as he strode down the corridor, _was there anything more healing for the soul_? He did not even notice the door to his old room as he swept past it.

 *** AUTHOR'S NOTE: The italicized dialogue at the beginning comes from the exchange between Carson and Robert in Season 6, Episode 8.**


End file.
